The present invention relates to a flat cable insertion socket, and more particularly to a flat cable insertion socket having terminals that allows a cover of the socket to be always pivotally upward turnable to facilitate convenient insertion of a flat cable into the socket to firmly contact with the terminals.
It is a common practice to use flat cables on an integrated circuit board for connecting circuits. The flat cables are connected to the circuit board via a plurality of tiny insertion sockets. FIG. 1 is a side sectional view of a conventional insertion socket 12 for such purpose. The insertion socket 12 may be provided with a cover 14. The cover 14 can be lifted to widen an opening of the socket for a flat cable 10 to conveniently insert thereinto. When the cover 14 is closed, it applies a force on the flat cable 10 to press the same against terminals 11 located in the socket 12, so that the flat cable 10 and the terminals are electrically connected. The flat cable 10 has only one bared side for pressing against and electrically contacting with the terminals 11. The other side of the flat cable 10 is insulated. For the bared side of the flat cable 10 to always contact with the terminals, there are times when the socket 12 must be welded to a circuit board 13 upside down, as shown in FIG. 2. However, the cover 14 on the upside-down socket 12 could not be fully opened for the flat cable 10 to insert into the socket 12 easily. The insertion of the flat cable 10 into the upside-down socket 12 is therefore difficult.
The terminals 11 disposed in the socket 12 shown in FIG. 1 each includes only one barb 15 that is the only one point at where the flat cable 10 contacts with each terminal 11. In order to reinforce the contact of the flat cable 10 with the terminals 11, it has been tried to increase a pressure applied by the closed cover 14 on the socket 12. However, due to the fact that a reaction force is equal to the applied force, terminals 11 in the socket 12 generate an increased reaction force on the cover 14 when the latter applies an increased force on the socket 12. In the event the socket 12 has a very small volume, a reaction force applied on the cover 14 might cause a central area of the cover 14 to arch and deform that will have adverse influence on an expected pressure to be applied by the cover 14.
Therefore, the conventional insertion socket 12 shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 has the problem of having a cover 14 that could not be fully opened when the socket 12 is upside-down and might be deformed when the socket 12 is very small. On the other hand, there is no doubt that future circuit boards 13 will become smaller and smaller in the development of integrated circuits and the conventional insertion socket 13 would finally become unacceptable for the very small circuit board 13.